About
The Cloris Awards
OUR MISSION
The Cloris Leachman Excellence in Theatre Arts Awards ("The Cloris Awards"), celebrate excellence in theatre in greater Des Moines. The annual awards program brings together the theatre community and enhances the visibility of local theatre companies and their productions.
Our History
The Cloris Awards were founded in 2015 by three local theatre critics with support from the Des Moines Social Club. The founders recognized significant growth in central Iowa’s theatre scene and created the awards to simultaneously honor local companies’ achievements and offer a new incentive to further elevate their work. The Des Moines Social Club hosted the first two annual ceremonies, including the 2016 event that featured a visit from Cloris Leachman herself, before the ceremony moved in 2017 to Hoyt Sherman Place.
Cloris Leachman
Our namesake
Cloris Leachman (April 30, 1926 – January 27, 2021) was an American actress and comedian whose career spanned seven decades. She received 22 Primetime Emmy nominations of which she won eight; won an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Golden Globe Award.
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Born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa, she attended Theodore Roosevelt High School. Leachman attended Northwestern University and began appearing in local plays at the Des Moines Community Playhouse. She won the 1946 Miss America pageant and secured a scholarship to study at the Actors Studio in New York City.
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From 1953 to 1978, Leachman was married to film director George Englund. Their family had four sons and one daughter: Bryan (died 1986), Morgan, Adam, Dinah, and George.
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Ms. Leachman is best known in film for The Last Picture Show (1971), many Mel Brooks comedies such as Young Frankenstein (1974) and History of the World, Part I (1981), and in the 1993 film The Beverly Hillbillies. Her most iconic television roles were in The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-76), the spin-off show Phyllis (1975-77), and later as Grandma Ida in Malcom in the Middle (2006), as well as a number of guest appearances later in her career.
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Ms. Leachman and her family attended the 2nd Annual Cloris Awards in 2016. Leachman died at her home in Encinitas, California, in 2021 at the age of 94.